


Coup De Foudre

by A_Candle_For_Sherlock



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Love Confession, M/M, Tumblr Prompts, Watson is wise, ephiphanies, love as a science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 20:59:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17311763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/A_Candle_For_Sherlock
Summary: “Coup de foudre” is usually used to describe the “thunderbolt” (the literal translation) of love at first sight. Holmes is using it this way because mental epiphanies feel like being lovestruck to him.





	Coup De Foudre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mandysimo13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandysimo13/gifts).



 

We fell quiet at last, and the quiet grew around us. The fire had burned itself down low while we had been absorbed in one another, so that I could see John now only by candlelight, his satisfied expression half-buried in his pillow, clarity softened by approaching sleep.

Beautiful.

The sense of epiphany is incomparable, the _coup_ _de_ _foudre_ that lights my mind end to end out of the darkness. I expect it on a case, look for it: I did not expect it in our bed. I drew a breath.

“I love you,” I said, astounded. He stirred, and blinked at me, taking in my expression.

Then he laughed. “Really, Sherlock.”

“Really, John!” My voice emerged strangely.

He sobered at once. “I–my dear, you’ve just made passionate love to me. You asked to have me months ago. You told me then–ordered me, even–to stay with you always. As I meant to. I–”

“You knew.”

“Yes.” Gently, kindly. “You didn’t?” He was pushing up onto his elbows, now, to regard me with interest. “I don’t often notice the relevancies before you do.”

“Yes, but–” I had a sudden impulse to hide my face from him; rubbed a hand over my mouth, and resisted it. Only he can unnerve me so quickly. “I didn’t think it was real.”

“This?”

“Love, the whole of it. Romance, John! It’s the ideal of idle poets. I am a scientist; I aspire to reality. I admire you, I trust you, I find you appealing, I wish to touch you and to keep you with me and to make you glad. That is sensible. That is real.”

He was smiling very tenderly, now. It was difficult to continue, caught in the warmth of his gaze, yet I could not stop.

“But the whole of it transcends its parts. Why is that? What is that? You are beautiful. It’s almost unbearable–that you are here with me like this. I love you,” I finished, and I ought to have been embarrassed by myself, but he took my face in his hands, and pressed his forehead to my own, and I forgot myself instead.

**Author's Note:**

> “Coup de foudre” is usually used to describe the “thunderbolt” (the literal translation) of love at first sight. Holmes is using it this way because mental epiphanies feel like being lovestruck to him.


End file.
